Israeli pilots speak out against bombing innocent Palestinians

mooseofterror tacked this on to an old thread, I think it deserves a good long look. Thanks to mooseofterror to bringing it up.

This makes me very happy, and many Israelis are probably taking pride in these men's stand.

read the whole article at the link, I included some of the salient points, and some of the kickers.

www.guardian.co.uk...

"'We're air force pilots, not mafia. We don't take revenge'

Israel's F-16 and Black Hawk refuseniks say why they could not obey illegal orders and kill innocent Palestinians

Chris McGreal in Tel Aviv
Wednesday December 3, 2003
The Guardian

For two months, a rebel group of Israeli Black Hawk helicopter and F-16 fighter pilots has been denounced as traitors for saying they will no longer bomb Palestinian cities.
Until now they have maintained a resolute silence on their motives, preferring to limit their criticism of Ariel Sharon's war to a letter signed by 27 reserve and active duty pilots refusing to carry out what they described as illegal orders, and denouncing the occupation as eating at the moral fabric of Israel.

Now, having been thrown out of the air force, they are talking publicly about what brought members of the most revered branch of the Israeli military to make an unprecedented challenge to the handling of the conflict with the Palestinians.

"I served more than seven years as a pilot," said Captain Alon R, who, like all the younger pilots, hopes to return to combat flying and so declines to use his full name in order to retain his security clearance. "In the beginning, we were pilots who believed our country would do all it could to achieve peace. We believed in the purity of our arms and that we did all we could to prevent unnecessary loss of life.

"Somewhere in the last few years it became harder and harder to believe that is the case."

The line was crossed for most of the pilots with the dropping of the one-tonne bomb last year on the home of a Hamas military leader, Salah Shehade, killing him and 14 of his family, mostly children.

One captain described the bombing as deliberate killing, murder even. Another called it state terrorism, though some colleagues swiftly stomped on that interpretation. But they all agreed that the attack sowed the doubts that resulted a year later in the letter that sent shockwaves through the Israeli military...

..."You don't have to be a genius to know that the destruction from a one-tonne bomb is massive, so someone up there made a decision to drop it knowing it would destroy buildings," he said. "Someone took the decision to kill innocent people. This is us being terrorists. This is vengeance."...

..."Is it legitimate to take F-15's and helicopters designed to destroy enemy tanks, and use them against cars and houses in one of the most heavily populated places in the world?" Capt Alon R asked...

..."Our government's policy is to maintain fear in the public," Capt Assaf L said. "We're not weak. It's not 1967 or 1973, with the Syrian army on the border waiting to attack us. This is maintaining a war to maintain the occupation.

"We've the strongest nation in the Middle East. The terrorists are bastards, but we must fight to not become terrorists ourselves."...

...The pilots say they have received more than 500 letters of support, including one from a Holocaust survivor, and numerous calls from fellow pilots. Several leftwing former cabinet ministers praised the pilots' stand, saying it proved the armed forces were moral. "

Bravo!